Stateline Western Australia

Teaching thousands of children from out at sea

REBECCA CARMODY (PRESENTER): The world's biggest yacht race, Clipper 2006, is proving to be more than just the adventure of a lifetime for sailing enthusiasts. It's also providing an education for thousands of Western Australian school students through a massive virtual classroom. Layla Tucak reports.

PETER BOLT (SCHOOL TEACHER): It's just the freedom. There's no motor running it's just the wind. You have to be very conscious of the elements around you. The shifting of the boat, the shifting of the wind. That's how explorers got around the world, that's how people got here,it's using the wind and the sails and the ocean. You're really in tune. You're just a part of the elements out there on the ocean.

LAYLA TUCAK (REPORTER): Primary school teacher Peter Bolt, from Albany, is as comfortable on the deck of a yacht as he is in front of a class of ten year olds. So when the department of education advertised for "a teacher with sea legs" to represent them in the Clipper Round the World Yacht race, he jumped at the chance.

PETER BOLT (SCHOOL TEACHER): I was excited by the concept and then of course once i was selected that just took my excitement to a new level. Potentially it is so brilliant in bringing the outside world and this adventure into the classroom.

LAYLA TUCAK (REPORTER): Mr Bolt will join the crew of the W-A yacht Western Australia-dot-com, in the Philippines this weekend. Each of the ten 68-foot boats can carry up to 20 people.

PETER BOLT (SCHOOL TEACHER): It's close, it's very personal, you don't have a shower very often. You eat when you can but you need to eat because you need to sustain some strength and energy to get up in the middle of the night to change that sail or do whatever else you need to do, so it's pretty full on.

LAYLA TUCAK (REPORTER): While he'll endure all the usual daily rigours of open ocean sailing, he'll also be heading up a massive virtual classroom. Mr Bolt will be logged into the education department website that'll put him in touch with thousands of school students in western australia through an online forum.

PETER BOLT (SCHOOL TEACHER): They can ask me any range of questions in relation to the boat that could be anything from my own personal equipment and kit and how I manage that through to hygiene, through to cooking, how do you sail a boat, how do you get on with other people, what's your role on the boat. There's cultural things as well as we visit those other ports.

PETER BOLT (SCHOOL TEACHER): We can challenge kids to make their own boats and put them on the water. We can talk about when you are, imagine in the classroom, you're in the classroom for three weeks with 17 other students and when you have a conflict with somebody and you can't get our of that classroom, how are you going to do that? So, there's the personal challenge side of it.

LAYLA TUCAK (REPORTER): Teaching has come a long way since the days of chalk and blackboards. Students are used to working on computers and surfing the net. There's no doubt the internet adds a totally different dimension to learning.

PETER BOLT (SCHOOL TEACHER): We can talk about these things in front of a classroom or through a book but when you can log in and get some taste for it as well it just opens up, it brings the world into the classroom.

LAYLA TUCAK (REPORTER): Do you think this sort of classroom teaching is the way of the future or do you think that kids will always need that personal contact as well?

The teacher guides the learning opportunity. The fact that the technology is there as a tool to bring to enhance and to excite.

PETER BOLT (SCHOOL TEACHER): You could throw the computers out, a good teacher is still the best part you've got.

LAYLA TUCAK (REPORTER): But a least for a little while mr bolt believes a computer-aided sea change will do students a world of good.

PETER BOLT (SCHOOL TEACHER): The concept of being able to turn things on and off again and instant pleasure. I think is what we're challenged with recreationally within society. I think things like sailing and surfing, anything that's hard to learn but puts you in touch with something elemental around you is really something quite special. You can learn these things really young and they can in fact take you through the whole of your life.